Blank Slate Kate

Chapter 26

I laugh. "Why have an assistant who's afraid of computers?"

He smiles. "Donna always said it didn't matter because Nadine's so good at everything else."

I flip through the book, and Ryan comes to stand beside my chair. "We went through this top to bottom looking for clues. Nadine felt bad, since there is the odd personal note in it, but we agreed it was important."

I nod. "Makes sense." I've stopped on the week before I left. Only one appointment stands out. I turn back a few weeks, checking each Friday, then say, "I saw this in the phone. A massage every Friday afternoon?"

"Yup, for nearly two years now. I must admit I don't know where, and neither did Nadine so we couldn't cancel it, but Donna was always so refreshed and relaxed Friday nights so it must have been a good place."

"Their phone number's not in my contacts list?"

Ryan shakes his head. "We checked."

Our eyes meet and I know we're both thinking the same thing: was Donna really getting a massage or was she meeting some man?

"It wasn't an affair," Ryan says firmly. "I don't believe it."

I shake my head. "You always know what I'm thinking."

He shuts his eyes tight for a moment as though I've thrown acid in his face, and I realize he's not really that perceptive. He didn't know Donna was leaving, after all. So much planning, all the work she must have done, and he hadn't known anything about it, or about her redecorating of her home office either. Huge parts of her life had been closed to him. She had closed them to him.

"Ryan, I'm sorry," I begin, but he holds up a hand to stop me.

"Nothing to apologize for. I told you that before and I still mean it." He takes a deep breath. "Feel free to look around as much as you want, in any cupboard or drawer."

I start with the 'key files' section in the desk, and we spend an hour or so sitting on the couch talking about some of the files. He doesn't know everything about them, of course, but a lot of them are celebrities so he knows who they are and can fill me in when I have no idea who these people are.

The "people die of exposure" line I threw at Jake and Hannah when they wanted me to go on television appears in a file. I tell Ryan I'd said it, and he says, "You told all your clients that, not to give anything away for free just for exposure. You wanted them to make sure they got what they deserved."

So I somehow remembered that phrase even though I don't remember the job itself. I sigh. "The things I do and don't remember are making me crazy, Ryan."

He wraps an arm around my shoulders. "You're not crazy. Never think that. It'll be okay."

I don't know how it'll ever be okay, but I hope he's right. I rest my head on his shoulder and he cuddles me closer.

It feels so good I don't want to move, but eventually he says softly, "We should keep looking at the files, right?"

I make myself sit up straight. "I guess so."

He releases me and reaches for another file. "How about this?"

We go through several more, then he says, "Oh, that one," when I pick up the file of one Misty Will. "Greatest challenge of your career."

I flip through the pop star's file and see references to drinking binges, wild nights with a movie star, possible pregnancy, and then freeze. Nearly everything is typed, but on one sheet there's a hand-written note that says, "Hide the pre-marital sex side. SOME people still disapprove."